Science fiction writer Jack L. Chalker died today after a long illness.

That's a shame. I really liked his Dancing Gods books.

I am rendered constantly agog with each revelation that this administration is, well, evil.

I have a hard time convincing people that this administration is not just "politics as usual" nor a "typical Republican administration." The Bush administration is a radical departure from the way politics has been practiced for the last century or so, from their obsession with secrecy to their contempt for any sort of congressional oversight to a mile long list of other stuff. This should be of concern to conservatives too, and to people who think that giving unlimited power to the executive branch is a bad thing.

Maybe it will stop, Lee.

I've met people that I think are crazy for working too hard--but they're usually career track people who make good money in just one job, and are so driven that they all but live at the office, and not just for the occasional crunch time.

Then again, when the muse is upon me I can be hella driven, focused, and hard-working myself, so maybe all those people just love being consultants or directors of development or whatever, and I assume they're all about the money and prestige and workaholism because I think their jobs are boring.

But that's a digression. IME, people who work more than one job are doing it out of necessity to make ends meet (with the rare exception of people working in one field to pay the bills while building enough experience in a new field to transition into it or because it's a passion that won't quite pay the rent), and the jobs are of the soul-sucking and low-paying variety.

I don't have the answers. But I do know it's messed up, and I can't see a single mother working three jobs as something that ought to be praised as a wonderful example of work ethic in action. It horrifies me, to think of living a life with no time for family, no time for friends, no time to curl up with a book and just be.

Maybe it will stop, Lee.

Too late.

Did I mention the carpeting laid out on the ground of the outdoor plaza?

Every attendant I've ever had has had at least two.(Attendants don't get health insurance.) My friend K., when we were roommates had four Bush can kiss my big white crippled ass.

I'm not really an American exceptionalist in my brain, either, but I am in my culture.

Can you clarify this sentence? How do you define exceptionalist, and are you saying you're one in your culture, but not your brain?

It's easy for me, being from a small and broken country like Jamaica, one I love with a fierce and burning love. I don't believe in any perfection. There is bad, but it is rarely uniform, and strange and marvellous things like the end of apartheid happen, and terrible things like the rise of Nazism also happen. I'm loathe to use the word unique at all, much less to credit one nation's actions or characteristics. We're just not different enough for that.

eta:

I have two jobs, admittedly for the fun of it. There's the one that pays my rent, and there's the one that's a dream that could never keep me in the style to which I've become accustomed (plus I'd be scared). I've been dubbed charmingly Jamaican for it.

I would hope this person could file for bankruptcy.

Not really a solution for this person, unless this person happens to be Donald Trump or a corporate entity (assuming there is a discernible difference). The immediate effect for an individual in the U.S. filing bankruptcy is a big woo-hoo freedom from debt, but the long-term effects are sucktastic. The bankruptcy stays on your credit record for 7 years. Lots of prospective employers do credit checks. Almost all prospective landlords do credit checks. And if you've got a bankruptcy on your record and find yourself seeking either a new job or a new place to live, you are seriously fucked.

One of my closest friends got into stupid amounts of credit card debt in her 20s. She declared bankruptcy and has regretted it ever since. Her housing situation was hell for seven years -- none of the people she looked for apartments with had enough money to apply for a place as the sole name on the lease, and every application tanked once her bankruptcy showed. She even carried letters from her three previous landlords stating that her credit problems had never affected the tenant/landlord relationship, that she'd been a model tenant who was clean, quiet and never late on the rent (which was all true--she screwed up big-time with the credit cards, but was scrupulously responsible about rent and utilities), and it didn't matter. Eventually she and I got an apartment together because she caved in and lied - she and her mother have the same name, so she used her mom's SSN and golden credit history.

And then, a month after I'd moved out of our place to make space for her fiance, the building burned down, and she lost everything and she and her fiance had to move in with her parents, because there was no way on earth they could get a place on their own until the bankruptcy was gone from her credit history.

Bankruptcy is a fab solution for a corporation or a former billionaire, but for regular folks it is just a longer, slower way of getting unpleasantly screwed.

Debt's a dirty little secret in most people's closets.

This.

In my experience, people who are truly poor, in the below-the-poverty-line sense, don't talk about it. I can't think of anyone who would work 3 jobs for the fun of it.

And this.

In my experience, people who are truly poor, in the below-the-poverty-line sense, don't talk about it.

American society is segregated enough by income that they might talk about it, just not where anyone better off could hear it. I think you're mainly right, but I have talked to a few single moms who mentioned food stamps and talked to people who didn't pay the heat all winter because the government won't allow the utility to shut it off until March even if you don't have the money. People with three jobs mainly talk to me about child support and not actual debt load.

I can't think of anyone who would work 3 jobs for the fun of it.

It depends, is the workaholic just something corporations dreamed up to blame the victim, or do they exist? My ideal balance for work and leisure time tops out at two jobs and 70 hours a week (it's less now, I don't want money as much any more), but I could imagine someone wanting to work 80. If one in 1000 did, that would mean half of all the Americans with two full-time jobs did it because they wanted to.

I guess I have two jobs as well. My regular job, and my small business (which I'm phasing out of). Then there's writing, which I hope will pay me something, someday. And volunteer work.

But then, I have no children. Still barely scratch by some months, supporting little ole me.